All is apparently fair in the NDP/Liberal war — including turning the issue of women’s reproductive choices into ammunition in the House of Commons.

On the heels of Justin Trudeau’s announcement that Liberal candidates will have to toe the party’s pro-choice line on abortion, the NDP is seizing the House with a motion to force MPs to pronounce on abortion rights.

The NDP wants Canadians to know it is concerned by Justin Trudeau’s attendance record in the House of Commons.

Over his first year at the helm, the current Liberal leader has been at least as likely to be spotted on the road elsewhere in Canada as to be found in his Commons seat for question period.

His immediate predecessor was also prone to be missing in House action. In the last election debates, Jack Layton tore a strip off Michael Ignatieff for that.

But then, in contrast to Ignatieff who — as leader of the official Opposition — was the chief critic of a minority government, Trudeau leads the third party in a majority Parliament.

Still, on the score of performance in the House, Trudeau does suffer from comparisons with Thomas Mulcair.

The NDP leader may be the most assiduous official Opposition leader who has come through Parliament in decades.

But at this juncture Mulcair, too, would probably benefit from inhaling less of the fumes of the Commons, as self-intoxicating as they may be for a leader who so effectively commands the attention of the House.

It is not to diminish the central place of Parliament in Canada’s democratic life to note that there are times when the partisan logic of the place overtakes common sense. As some recent NDP moves have confirmed, no party is immune to that particular ailment.

Since Trudeau is actually shoring up the pro-choice line in Parliament and not threatening to drive a tank through it, the only rationale for the NDP move is to sow embarrassment and division in the Liberal caucus.

A handful of its existing members are anything but pro-choice.

Not since Gilles Duceppe ended up having to take yes for an answer to his challenge to the House of Commons to recognize Quebec as a nation has an opposition party come up with as bad of a good idea.

The NDP has argued for years that the debate over abortion rights was closed, maintaining with admirable consistency that Parliament should not interfere in the reproductive choices of Canadian women.

On that basis, the party has mercilessly attacked the prime minister for not preventing his backbenchers from putting forward motions dealing directly or indirectly with abortion.

Its critics have repeatedly accused Stephen Harper of having the hidden agenda to restrict the reproductive choice of women.

But it is hard to square the notion that Conservative MPs should not be allowed to put their long-held convictions on abortion to the test in the House while New Democrats would be free to do so to score points on the issue.

The fate of the NDP motion — the text of which includes language pertaining to the government’s existing policy on maternal health in developing countries that could make it hard for pro-choice government MPs to support — is uncertain.

The vote might yet deliver anti-abortion advocates a rare victory on Harper’s watch in the House of Commons.

But whatever the result, it speaks volume about the current mindset of the NDP.

Dealing first with substance, the party’s eagerness to score easy points in an empty goal stands in sharp contrast with its gingerly-approach to more current social policy debates such as the one involving assisted suicide and euthanasia.

It is also symptomatic of the NDP and the Liberals’ reciprocal obsession with each other.

That obsession was heightened by the last fall’s byelection battle for Bob Rae’s former riding of Toronto Centre.

It is now exacerbated by the campaign for Olivia Chow’s recently vacated riding of Toronto-Spadina.

At this juncture, all is apparently fair in the NDP/Liberal war — including turning the issue of women’s reproductive choices into ammunition in the House of Commons.

This might be as good a time as any to remind both parties — but in particular the NDP — that if supremacy in the Caviar Left strongholds of downtown Toronto won elections, Harper would not be prime minister.

Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.